Searching for the Fleet Read online

  “Those are the places we would have used to leverage him off the floor,” Coop said quietly.

  “He was trying to take us all out,” Yash said.

  “But he wasn’t,” Coop said. “That container should have prevented any explosion from hitting the anacapa drive. Right?”

  She was the one who had told Coop that. It was a great simplification. Various forms of energy could hit and interact with the anacapa. Most of them were rare, and often only occurred in strange circumstances.

  Like an explosion. And not an explosion of the ship, where the energies and components were known. But an explosion using a different kind of device, like a touch explosive made of nanobits.

  Still, that didn’t answer her initial question: What had Dix been doing on the console?

  She moved the scanner toward the container, following along Dix’s arms to see if he had put more explosive on them.

  No explosive, but the scanner lit up red when it got to his hands.

  The word breach blinked, over and over again.

  Breach.

  Coop glanced over her shoulder. “The container’s been breached?”

  She nodded.

  “But it’s not obvious. It’s not open,” Coop said.

  Exactly. She clicked through the scanner’s readings. She let out a small breath.

  “He used acid,” she said, more to herself than Coop.

  “For what?” Coop asked.

  “On his hands.” She winced. God, that would have been painful. And he would have had to do it before he slit his own throat.

  She hadn’t known this man. She had thought she had, but she hadn’t. The determination he had shown, the level of destruction he was attempting.

  She was appalled.

  Coop stared at the scanner, then he looked at Dix’s hands. “That’s why they’re attached to the container? They’re not leaning on anything?”

  She didn’t move the scanner closer. She didn’t dare.

  “They’re inside the container, just a little. The acid ate away his skin, but more importantly, it ate away the edges of the container.”

  “It looks solid,” Coop said.

  “If we touch it,” she said, “it’ll collapse.”

  Dix couldn’t get into the system. That’s what she had seen. He had gotten into the notification system, the environmental system—nominally anyway—but he couldn’t find a back way into the anacapa drive. He had tried, which was why the readings she had initially gotten made no sense.

  There was a logic to his early actions, but not his later ones—at least, not the kind of logic she had assumed. His early actions obfuscated what he was trying to do. His later ones showed his frustration as he searched for, but didn’t find, a side way into the anacapa controls.

  “Now what?” Coop asked.

  Yash looked at him in surprise. She wasn’t used to Coop asking for instructions from her.

  But of course he was. They had to juggle two things: a body that could explode if they handled it wrong, and an exposed anacapa drive that could already be unstable.

  One problem at a time.

  First, the body. If it exploded, then anything else she had done up to that point would not matter.

  She let out a small breath. The body was a two-pronged problem: the touch explosive and those hands.

  “We need two different localized shields,” she said to Coop. “First, one around the body—except the hands and arms. The other around the container.”

  The localized bridge shields protected crew members or bridge equipment in case of an attack, usually some kind of laser weapon or hand-to-hand combat. The bridge shields weren’t very powerful, or else they would interfere with the operation of some of the equipment, but they would contain an explosion the size of the one that Dix tried to create—provided he hadn’t done anything more, like swallow something explosive to enhance the magnitude of the bomb.

  “We’ll section the shields at the elbows, just in case.” Coop said. He understood what she meant to do. The suggestion of sectioning made that clear.

  The bridge shields were badly designed. Yash had always meant to fix them. Their energy could harm skin that came into long-term contact with them, so no one could—for example—stick an arm out, have the shield form around the arm, and then shoot an interloper. The burning on the skin would have been too painful, and the shot would end up being impossible.

  But it didn’t matter if Dix’s arms burned at the point of contact with the shields. Still, she double-checked with the scanner, making sure no touch explosives—or even a handful of unbonded nanobits—coated his arms.

  None did, not from the shoulder/armpit down.

  She activated both shields, and watched them burn through the skin. For the first time since putting on the environmental suit, she was glad she wasn’t breathing the air on the bridge. The stench had to be foul.

  “Now what?” Coop asked.

  She let out a small breath. “We unbond the nanobits. That should disassemble the touch explosive without setting it off. We isolate the component parts so they can’t reassemble automatically, and then we remove the body from the bridge.”

  “All right,” Coop said. “You handle the anacapa drive, and I’ll deal with the body itself.”

  She glanced at him, about to protest, but then she stopped. He was right. If they worked in tandem, they might have a chance of getting out of here alive.

  “Okay,” she said. “I’ll see what the damage is, and work from there. Tell me when or if you want to move the body.”

  Coop nodded. He moved to one of the consoles. He could activate all kinds of equipment inside the shield, using the right commands.

  For a moment, she worried that he wouldn’t know them, but of course he would. This was standard. Deactivating nanobit bonding was something that everyone learned. They just didn’t learn how to do it with nanobits designed to explode.

  Coop would know, though. That was the kind of thing that a captain could learn without becoming an expert.

  It was the anacapa drive that was the main problem. She had to deal with that herself.

  She made herself focus on the container. She stared at it, then had the computer analyze the container’s solidity.

  As she expected, the container was compromised.

  She went to the console that housed the anacapa controls. She called up a holographic image of the anacapa itself.

  The holographic image glowed golden, just like it was supposed to. She flipped it, changed it, moved it around, and examined it from all angles.

  As far as she could tell, using just the equipment, the anacapa was fine. Whatever Dix had done to the container hadn’t yet reached the drive.

  She stopped, double-checked that assumption, gave it some extra thought. Nothing Dix had done could have altered the diagnostics for the anacapa drive. He hadn’t tampered with those readings. She had a record of everything he touched, and he hadn’t touched that.

  Which meant she could trust the readings she was getting on the anacapa drive.

  She needed to isolate the drive, and since it hadn’t been harmed—yet—by that acid, she could do so.

  She opened another screen, tapped it, and prepped another full bridge shield. She would put that shield around the anacapa drive.

  The problem was that she had to do so in a perfectly timed manner. She had to open the container so that its lid wasn’t inside that shield, and then she had to wrap the shield around the anacapa drive. The problem was that she would be jostling the container when she opened it, and that jostling might put the acid in touch with the anacapa.

  And she couldn’t even put anything in-between the drive and the container. There wasn’t enough room.

  She brought up one more small screen, and monitored Coop’s work, as if he were a rookie engineer. He had pulled the nanobits off the body, and was separating them into component categories. He had created small shield bubbles so that the component parts of the nanobits wo
uld flow into the appropriate bubble, just like they were supposed to.

  If he were one of her rookie engineers, he would have received a commendation from her.

  She half smiled, hoping she would be able to do as well as Coop was.

  She wasn’t going to tell him what she was trying. Either it would work or it wouldn’t. If it didn’t work, then they were both screwed anyway.

  She thought of automating the commands, letting the computer open the container and then send the shield down. Whatever she gained in split-second timing, she might lose if Dix had tampered with some of the automated command system.

  Some of the automation lived in the environmental equipment. She didn’t have time to check to see if Dix had tampered with any of that.

  She needed to get the anacapa drive out of that container, and into a new one.

  One step at a time. One problem at a time.

  She was going to handle the movement herself. She had done tricky work on anacapa drives before. She could do it again.

  She moved the holographic control screen with her, and walked to the front of the container. Dix had wrapped himself around three sides with his feet extended as close to the front of the container as possible.

  He had clearly been thinking someone might try to break into the container. He figured they would have to maneuver around him.

  Yash had to, because he was mostly covered in a shield. (Which you hadn’t expected, you bastard, she thought at him, wishing he could actually hear that. He had always hated it when she yelled at him. She wanted him to hate this now. She certainly did.)

  She had to take three-part action, not two-part action. She had to shut off the shield around the container, open the lid, and then put a shield around the anacapa drive.

  She needed to do that in record time.

  She wasn’t going to think about being fast. She was going to concentrate on being precise.

  “Okay,” Coop said, startling her. “The body’s ready to move, except for the hands.”

  She nodded. “You’ll be able to move it in a minute or two. Call up a stretcher and a protective medical bubble. By the time it gets here, we’ll be ready for it.”

  Everything in the medical bay was automated, so that someone trapped alone on the Ivoire could take care of themselves if need be. Hell, someone trapped alone on any of the Fleet’s ships large enough to have a med bay could do that.

  “Yes’m. I’ll get right on that,” Coop said. There was amusement in his tone, which meant that he had probably already done exactly what she asked.

  Her cheeks heated. She had just given the captain orders. She really had moved far away from Fleet thinking in a lot of areas.

  Then she put Coop out of her mind. She needed to fully concentrate to make sure she didn’t miss a step of what she was going to do.

  She set the commands on the screen before her, but didn’t execute them. She kept them open, so that she could hit the commands in the proper sequence.

  Step one: cancel the shield around the container.

  Step two: open the container.

  Step three: shield the anacapa drive itself.

  Then she crouched near the container.

  If she did this right, it would take less than thirty seconds to complete the entire task, maybe as few as ten seconds. If she did it wrong…

  She took a deep breath, and started.

  Seven

  With the touch of a finger, Yash canceled the shield. It flared, then vanished, just like it was supposed to.

  Then she commanded the anacapa container lid to open. This step made her the most nervous. She didn’t know if the acid had destroyed any of the controls inside the container.

  The container shuddered, then the lid floated back, hitting the shield around Dix’s torso. The lid started to close again, but she activated the second shield, the one meant to surround the anacapa drive.

  For a half second, she thought the lid would close before the shield activated, but the lid banged against the second shield, and flipped backward again. The lid hung between the two shields for a moment, then the entire container fell apart, leaving the anacapa drive to glow in the middle of the mess.

  “Good job,” Coop said. “We can get the body out of here now.”

  She nodded, feeling her heart race. It hadn’t been racing earlier, but it was now—a reaction to getting this done.

  The container’s side was almost completely gone. She saw the bones and sinew in Dix’s hands, looking half eaten away, like raw meat badly carved up.

  He had done that to himself deliberately, probably as a last resort, after he couldn’t break into the controls.

  She shook her head. She wasn’t going to think about him. He wasn’t worth her time.

  Instead, she stood and went to the equipment locker. There was a smaller container inside of it, a backup in case the anacapa drive’s container got damaged.

  At least, she hoped there was one, because that was the one thing she had forgotten to check.

  She opened the door, and stared at everything for a moment, her heart still thudding hard.

  There were more environmental suits, some smaller weapons, and a lot of parts of consoles, chairs, communications equipment. Finally, she saw the extra container, shoved toward the back.

  She grabbed the container, slid it out, and turned.

  The stretcher had lowered itself near Dix’s body. Coop was supervising the transition. She hoped he had already wrapped the body in the protective medical bubble.

  God, she was nervous. She didn’t trust Coop—who probably knew more about this part of the plan than she ever would—to do his job properly.

  At least the make-sure instructions hadn’t come out of her mouth.

  This time.

  The stretcher floated upward, Dix’s body flat on its back, the arms barely attached. The elbows were burned, the forearms hanging on only by bits of sinew. The hands didn’t bleed or drip or anything, which surprised her, given how they looked. But they had been that way for more than twenty-four hours. There probably wasn’t any fluid left.

  Coop watched it, his expression grim. He had his arms crossed over his chest as the stretcher made its way toward the exit.

  She didn’t want to watch the stretcher leave. Instead, she went to the anacapa drive. She pushed the most damaged piece of the container away with her booted foot, and shoved the other pieces aside as well.

  Then she set the backup container down in front of the drive on the one spot where Dix’s body hadn’t rested. She opened that container, made sure the interior had accumulated no dirt or grime, and left the lid tilted back.

  She was nearly done.

  Only a few more steps.

  She shut off the shield around the anacapa drive, then gathered the drive in her arms. She hadn’t held an anacapa drive in nearly five years. She could feel it pulsing through her environmental suit.

  The drive was inactive, so she could move it without compromising its connection to the controls—provided she did so fast.

  And she didn’t want to hold this drive for very long.

  Her teeth vibrated. The flowing energy actually made the bones in her body hum. She hated holding these drives. Holding it seemed easier with the suit on, but she still felt like she was holding something that could destroy her in a matter of seconds.

  She put the drive in the new container.

  With her gloved hands, she reached down and moved the bottom of the old container out of the way. Then, using her knuckles, she shoved the new container into place.

  The bottom of the container would run through its diagnostics, making sure none of that acid had eaten its way to the controls. She didn’t set the diagnostics to look for the acid, in case Dix had thought to tamper with that specific a command.

  He hadn’t. The diagnostic ran clean, and the system asked her if she wanted to establish contact with the anacapa drive through this new container.

  She said yes.

  The
container and the anacapa flared orange as they hooked up, and then the lid came down on its own.

  The system asked her if she wanted to engage the drive.

  She declined.

  Set up, ready to go. When—if—Coop decided to use the Ivoire’s anacapa drive again, the system would remind whoever was in charge that the anacapa had been placed in a new container and would ask them to run the diagnostics again.

  She let out a small sigh, stood, and stared at the pieces of the previous container, scattered across the floor.

  Dix had tried to destroy everything.

  Dix.

  She shook her head, then set the thought aside.

  She used another screen to access the cleaning equipment stored on the next deck down, in case Dix had messed with the bridge’s cleaning protocols. She programmed the cleaners to come and remove the bits of the container and whatever else Dix had left around the bridge.

  She marked the instruction hazardous material, so it would be dealt with properly.

  Then she rocked back on her heels and closed her eyes.

  “Done?” Coop asked.

  She nodded without opening her eyes.

  “We’re safe?” he asked.

  “As we can be.” She opened her eyes and stood up. The cleaning equipment—some small robotic pieces and floating garbage dumps that looked oddly like that stretcher—were making their way onto the bridge.

  “We have to dispose of the body,” Coop said.

  She nodded.

  “I’d like to do it together,” he said.

  She wanted that, too. She wanted Dix gone. “You want me to join you in the med bay?”

  “No,” Coop said. “We can dispose of the body from here. I just want to watch it leave the ship.”

  He had moved to the captain’s chair. He raised one of the portals, revealing the exterior of the ship. Then he tapped the controls, and a small pod jettisoned from the med bay side of the Ivoire.

  The pod was small and white. Yash had seen more of them than she ever wanted to. A handful of the pods were designed to float to a particular planet or just travel through space, but they were golden, and often reflective. Usually, they were reserved for someone with clout.